Civil War Women

Digitized Archival Material

Rose O'Neal Greenhow was born in Montgomery County, Maryland in 1817. "Wild Rose", as she was called from a young age, was a leader in Washington society, a passionate secessionist, and one of the most renowned spies in the Civil War. The collection is mostly correspondence with Rose Greenhow related to her activities on behalf of the Confederate States of America, and contains both scanned images and transcripts of her letters.

This small, leather-bound volume is the 36-page diary kept by schoolgirl Alice Williamson at Gallatin, Tennessee from February to September 1864. The main topic of the diary is the occupation of Gallatin and the surrounding region by Union forces under General Eleazer A. Paine. Both scanned images and transcripts of the diary pages are available here.

Sarah E. Thompson (1838-1909) worked alongside her husband (a recruiter for the Union Army) assembling and organizing Union sympathizers in a predominately rebel area around Greeneville, Tennessee. After he was killed in 1864, she continued to work for the Union, providing intelligence that in one case led to the capture of a Confederate General. This collection includes transcripts and scanned images of correspondence that contains testimonials of Thompson's services to the Federal government and her subsequent post-war struggles against poverty.